Could AI really take over the internet? Here’s what experts say.

September 28, 2026 / 10:48 AM EDT / CBS News

In a 1951 speech, British mathematician Alan Turing theorized that "intelligent machinery" could one day "take control" of society.

"There would be plenty to do in trying, say, to keep one's intelligence up to the standard set by the machines, for it seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers," said Turing, who famously helped decipher the Nazis' Enigma code during World War II.

With machines potentially on the cusp of achieving "superintelligence," Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently updated those long-held fears about the current era by warning that an AI "swarm" could soon take control of the internet.

Yet while such a scenario is frightening to consider, many AI security experts view it as unlikely, although they point to other potential dangers as frontier AI models evolve.

A major reason computer scientists downplay concerns that AI could wrench control of the web from humans is that the internet isn't monolithic, but rather comprises a vast system of interconnected networks.

"The internet is a network of networks that billions of devices connect to through routers, switches and Wi-Fi…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/